this post was submitted on 25 May 2026
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It’s called “parenting.” Yes, it’s harder these days with the internet and literally everything “right there.” But it’s still your job as a parent.
ANYTIME ANYONE imposes restrictions “for the children” - there’s something nefarious going on. If it’s a politician-they are looking to build a database for $. If it’s your priest-he’s banging the alter boy after ccd, or hates himself so much for being gay he’s lashing out at the lgbtq community. If it’s a company-they’ve either been threatened into doing it or more likely are on the take with a fat payday. If it’s a developer adding it into Linux, they should expect fierce skepticism and backlash from the community.
It’s NEVER about the children. It’s always an alternative motive. If they actually cared about kids, they’d make sure they were fed at school, they’d invest in their education, or they’d invest into social programs to help out those less fortunate.
I don't think it's any coincidence that this is occurring at the same time companies like Palantir are signing government contracts left and right and mega-sized data centers are sprouting up all over the country.
Just like it's never really about FREEDOM™
The california law isn't actually age verification. It is unchecked age assertion at the operating system level. He is also there specifically for the parents to fill out.When a new device is purchased. I have no doubts.It will be misused and lead to age verification in the OS with a third party verifying the age, but that isnt want the bill is now
Everything you said is correct, but at the same time: "We're not driving off a cliff ^(yet)^, we're just moving in for a closer look."
Shift all the blame. Guns? America? Fuck that, it's the individual, not the industry.
The internet is always two things. The web, access to information on all levels (good or bad ), should be available. It needs to be regulated bc META and anything Elon is apart of, still exist.
Parents are fighting, "literally everything" ! We as a species, is losing to whatever the "internet" is. We need real regulation.
Ear me out: make tools for parents to restrict their child themselves instead of restricting everyone and rob data
Oh you mean the thing that worked for 20+ years? Are you crazy? Think about the profits and data we won't collect.
It's already available and parents are not utilizing it.
But I also don't see the problem with this. As long as there's savvy and smart children that did get educated on safety, the knowledge can propagate to those that did not.
The parents have determined that it's not needed. They've determined that trying to strictly regulate exactly what Little Johnny can and can't see online does him far more harm than porn ever could. This hyper-authoritarian nonsense needs to die in a fire.
And the worse part, we DO have tools for parents. Either they don't know these tools exist or they don't know how to use them. Mostly because they're tech-illiterate. Kudos to the parents who educate themselves.
This is a benign example, but I was talking with a fellow parent about our dislike of Paw Patrol and told them I had to remove that as an option in Netflix. They were shocked that was possible and I could see the gears turning in their head with that new info. Granted I'm not parenting a teenager yet, but it seems like most of the functionality in bigger platforms generally exists, people just don't know it's there and to set it.
Or we regulate the use and teach how it properly works. Tools for parents are get but it's not a fix.
And none of that regulation will have anything to do with age, if you want real effectiveness. A teenager seeing a dick and a dick, a vagina and a vagina, or a dick and a vagina, being mashed together isn't concerning in the big picture. The stuff that is worrying about the internet affects adults just as much as children, like social media.
You missed the point completely. My example was Meta and Elon's companies not teens fucking.
Age verification is pointless. The post I responded to, was talking about it is the parent's (individuals) job not the government's (regulation). That would be wrong.
That is an extreme view and I believe a dangerous one. Regulation like not experimenting on teen females which caused some to take their life. That seems pretty age related.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/facebooks-dangerous-experiment-teen-girls/620767/
The only way to "protect" or "target" any demographic is to first identify everyone to see if they're in that demographic.
That's almost always the only reason it's done.
Thats not the case here.